Abstract: An improved color picture tube includes a shadow mask which has a rectangular periphery with two long sides and two short sides. The mask has a major axis, which passes through the center of the mask and parallels the long sides, and a minor axis, which passes through the center of the mask and parallels the short sides. The mask includes slit-shaped apertures aligned in columns that essentially parallel the minor axis. Adjacent apertures in each column are separated by tie bars in the mask. The widths of the tie bars are graded in dimension. The grading is at least partially related to the amount of tie bar stretch occurring in a similar size mask having different tie bar widths.

Abstract: An improved color picture tube includes a mask that has an aperture array including slit-shaped apertures aligned in columns that essentially parallel the minor axis and end at a border of the aperture array. Adjacent apertures in each column are separated by tie bars in the mask. The tie bars in one column are offset in the longitudinal direction, paralleling the minor axis, from the tie bars in each adjacent column. The spacing between tie bars in a column is the tie bar pitch at a location on the mask. A first set of columns, that includes every other column, has increased tie bar pitch at the ultimate end apertures, as compared to the tie bar pitch at the penultimate apertures in each of the columns. In a second set of columns, every other column not in the first set, has decreased tie bar pitch at the ultimate end apertures, as compared to the tie bar pitch at the penultimate apertures in each of the columns.